DNA evidence links 4 1970s Calgary murders to dead serial killer

A convicted sex offender with a decades-long criminal record in Canada and the United States is responsible for the deaths of four young women in Calgary in the 1970s, according to police.

Alberta RCMP say serial killer Gary Allen Sreri, who died in Idaho in 2011, has been identified through advances in DNA technology more than 45 years after his murder.

Police say Sreri killed 14-year-old Eva Dvorak and Patricia McQueen, 20-year-old Melissa Rehorek and 19-year-old Barbara McLean in 1976-77.

Their murders were not discovered until the 2022 council demanded a review of historical files. This led the police to a suspicious hypothesis in 2023, and the creation of a family tree using the DNA of distant family members – a police technique known as investigative genetic genealogy.

The US-born Sreri, who fled to Canada in the mid-1970s, lived in Alberta and British Columbia until the late 1990s. He was deported to the United States in 2003.

Alberta RCMP detailed the similarities between the deaths of the four young women at a press conference Thursday at K Division headquarters in Edmonton.

Dvorak, McQueen, Rehorek and McLean were described as young, vulnerable victims who were last seen walking around Calgary in the evening or at night. They all died of suffocation and were left outside the city limits without any attempt to hide their bones. Their bodies were found fully clothed with traces of fetuses, which could not be identified at the time of the crimes because the appropriate technology for DNA profiling was not available.

Dvorak and McQueen were last seen around midnight on February 15, 1976, walking near 9th Avenue and 12th Street SE. Their bodies were found 11 hours later under the Happy Valley underpass in the west of the city. Their deaths were initially classified as “sudden” and suspicious, but not homicide.

Rehorek, who had recently moved to Calgary from Windsor, was last seen on September 15, 1976 by his roommates at the YWCA, where he lived. A young woman who worked as a hotel maid planned to hitchhike. out of town for a two-day vacation. His body was found at 10:50 that morning in a ditch along a gravel road west of Calgary – now known as Township Road 252. Police say there was evidence of a fight and he was hit in the head.

McLean worked at a bank in Calgary after moving from Nova Scotia in September 1976. Five months later, on February 25, 1977, he was last seen alone at the Highlander Bar on 16th Avenue, where he had been with friends. Her body was found shortly after 8 a.m. at 6th Street and 80th Avenue – just outside city limits. Police believe there was a struggle before his death, as the tips of his left fingers were injured and he had marks, bruises and scratches.

More will come.